


unsolved mysteries

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Jackaby - William Ritter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: In which Abigail Rook is throwing a party, and her roommates Jenny and Jackaby find themselves hiding from said party in the same hall closet.





	unsolved mysteries

It isn’t that Jenny has a _problem_ with parties. A problem generally implies that she has some sort of lingering resentment, or maybe some past trauma that links back to parties, or something else that would at least sort of justify why she’s locking herself in the hall closet with a copy of _Anne of Avonlea_ and the entire bowl of pretzels. She doesn’t have a _problem_ with parties, exactly, it’s just that—there are a lot of people, in _her house,_ and she _definitely didn’t agree to this many people._ Abigail was like _do you want to have a party,_ and Jenny was like _no,_ and Abigail gave Jenny big, wheedling eyes and said _it’ll just be Charlie and my book club and a few guys from the precinct, it’s fine,_ and Jenny figured it _would_ be fine because Jenny had _met_ Charlie as well as Abigail’s book club and what was a few new people? But then _extra people_ came along and now there are thirteen other people in the small apartment and Jenny feels like the squished atmosphere of the broom closet is about as much space as she’d be getting out in the party, though it has the advantage of being a little quieter—

“You took _all_ the pretzels?” says Jackaby from next to her, sounding somewhat affronted for the pretzels’ sake.

Jenny shrieks, then claps a hand over her own mouth. She doesn’t want Abigail coming in and fussing. “What the _fuck,_ Jackaby,” she says fiercely, flattening herself against the closet door to glower at him. She can’t really see him, so she doesn’t know if she pulls it off. “What are you _doing_ in here?”

She hears the rustle of Jackaby standing up, and then he flips on the light and takes a handful of pretzels from the bowl. Jenny tries to move it out of his reach, but, well. The closet’s probably three square feet at most. Three feet in a square? Whatever. Something like that. Jenny can’t do measurement when Jackaby’s trying to steal the snacks she took for herself. “I could ask you the same thing,” says Jackaby with an annoying amount of dignity for someone who’s wearing Abigail’s pajama top.

“That’s Abigail’s pajama top,” says Jenny.

“Is it?” Jackaby looks genuinely surprised. “I just grabbed the laundry, you said it was all mine—”

“Jesus,” Jenny mutters, then, “I said it was _almost_ all yours and you needed to wait for me to sort it because otherwise you—you _steal people’s clothing—”_

“You, Miss Cavanaugh, are dodging the question,” says Jackaby, and has the nerve to gently tap Jenny’s nose. Irritated, she bats his hand away. “What are you doing in this closet?”

“I asked you first,” says Jenny, only feeling slightly juvenile.

Jackaby considers this, then says, “I don’t think Abigail’s friends like me or my topics of conversation, and they kept looking at my pajama set with ridiculous expressions. I don’t come to parties to be mocked. What about you?”

Something about that makes Jenny’s chest twist in an angry-sad way. It’s true that Jackaby is a bit odd, but he’s odd in a lovable, sweet kind of way ( _not_ that she’d ever tell him this; it’d go straight to his head and he’d steal _her_ laundry by accident next time). The concept of Abigail’s friends overlooking this just because Jackaby’s wearing an embroidered blue pajama top and earnestly eating from a plastic bag of gummy bears (he brings his own snacks to parties, even when they’re in his house) upsets Jenny beyond the telling of it. “Well,” she says, “I got—anxious.”

Jackaby’s face softens and he sits down, flipping over a nearby bucket full of cleaning supplies to make a seat for Jenny. Jenny bites her lip so she won’t tell him off for ruining the closet (she just organized it last week) and sits down on the bucket next to him, the pretzels in her lap. He takes the book. “You’ve read this,” he says. “Don’t you think it’s boring, trapping yourself in one time period with all these books you read?”

“ _Pride and Prejudice_ happens earlier than the Anne books, Jackaby,” Jenny begins patiently.

Jackaby shakes his head, looking earnestly up at her. “The past,” he says. “All the books you read are about the past. Why not look at the present or the future?”

Jackaby has a habit of asking painfully astute questions that make you feel like someone is attempting to pull off your fingernails while also offering you two nights at an expensive hotel. “Because the future won’t be what I was hoping it would,” says Jenny, “and presently, I have anxiety over a _fucking_ party. So.”

“I’d say it’s a legitimate cause,” says Jackaby. “Lots of people you don’t know in your house, and wasn’t—what—happened, didn’t that happen with lots of people around?”

“No,” says Jenny, “it happened in this apartment when I thought I was alone.”

Jackaby takes another pretzel and starts loudly crunching on it. Jenny waits for him to continue to dissect her emotions, but instead he says, “Did you know Douglas got loose on the fire escape last week? We’re probably going to be sued for psychological damages to our next-door neighbors.”

“Jackaby,” says Jenny.

Jackaby waves a hand disambiguously. “I know,” he says, “we’re talking about you. My mind just jumps from topic to topic sometimes.”

“I know,” says Jenny, and takes the other half of the pretzel from him to eat it herself. Then, “There were lots of people around after. At the hospital. And they were all talking, but it felt like—no one saw me, just what had happened to me. I didn’t like that feeling.” She reaches out, almost takes Jackaby’s hand, then awkwardly thinks better of it, adjusting her hair instead. “Sometimes people ask those dumb party questions,” she says, “like, _which superpower would you have?_ And someone says invisibility, and—that’s the worst curse I can think of. I get progressively scared on a daily basis that I’m just going to fade away and disappear, and I think it gets worse at parties.”

“That was _my pretzel,_ ” says Jackaby. When Jenny glares at him, he gives her a little grin. “It’s just that it’s silly,” he says. “I always see you. Always have.”

Jenny smiles a little. “I know,” she says.

Jackaby had shown up looking for a place to stay and taken a cup of tea with Jenny. He’d acted so comfortingly normal around her that she’d had to ask at the end of the cup—hadn’t he read the articles, or heard the stories, about the girl who was stupid enough to nearly get murdered in her own apartment? Fixing her hair, the papers had said, getting ready for a date. Jackaby had smiled a little and said that he supposed he had heard those stories, but really what was relevant was that he needed an apartment and Jenny seemed very nice. He’s been living with her for nearly five years.

“You’d think it would get better, wouldn’t you?” says Jenny absently. “It’s been so long.”

“If you went out _side,_ it would,” says Jackaby, his voice beginning to take on the familiar cadence of a long-fought argument.

“I’m not having this conversation in my closet,” says Jenny firmly.

“You never have this conversation,” says Jackaby sulkily. “There’s a movie theater that just opened up a few blocks down—you’d like it so much, Jenny.”

“The old one that was always in the process of being renovated?” says Jenny, trying to sound casual and disinterested.

Jackaby catches her effort and smiles smugly. “That one,” he says. “Exactly that one. And it has nice seats and it’s independent, so it actually makes good popcorn. Abigail and I went a few weeks ago and saw some bad movie that made her cry.”

“Did you tell her you thought it was bad?” says Jenny, amused, then, “You and Abigail went to the movies? Was this—she only started dating Charlie last week, were you two—”

“Don’t be absurd,” says Jackaby, sounding personally affronted at the concept of him and Abigail in a romantic sense. This comforts Jenny for a reason she isn’t completely ready to admit. “And yes, I did. She said that I needed to learn how to phrase my opinions more diplomatically, and I said that that shouldn’t be a requirement when it comes to close friendship, and then she got all surprised as though she hadn’t known I considered her a close friend. I truly don’t understand that girl.”

“More accurately,” says Jenny, “she doesn’t understand you just yet.”

“I’m a mystery,” says Jackaby, sounding very self-satisfied. In Jenny’s opinion, though, there really isn’t anything mysterious about this remarkably, sweetly open man, at least not on the surface—he meets everyone’s eyes with unabashed honesty. Jenny thinks it’s more that he locks parts of himself away and covers them over as though they never were there in the first place. There isn’t anything mysterious about that; it’s just a frightened not-quite-lie that Jenny completely understands.

“Very mysterious,” she agrees. “Do you still have those gummy bears?”

“That’s a _mystery,_ ” says Jackaby. Off Jenny’s look, he reluctantly adds, “No, I don’t. I left them on the sofa when I came in here to hide.”

Jenny slides a little awkwardly off the bucket, squeezing herself in right next to Jackaby. “This is an okay closet,” she says.

“You keep it neatly organized,” Jackaby agrees, and his arm goes around Jenny’s shoulder. Her stomach does a funny little leap thing and she reaches up to play with the tassels on the ends of Abigail’s sleeve (she will _not_ call it Jackaby’s sleeve when it’s laundry he _stole)._ “Are you feeling all right?”

“I don’t know,” says Jenny truthfully. “I don’t think I like parties.”

“I think this is a nice party we have right here,” says Jackaby very seriously. He catches Jenny’s mouth twitching and says with a frown, “Why is that funny? Abigail says all you need to throw a good party are snacks and friends, and I have both—so.”

“So,” says Jenny, and lets her cheek rest on Jackaby’s shoulder.


End file.
